Texas Dems in the Lege have left the building...and the state.

[Liberal In Texas]

Texas Democrats to Leave State to Block G.O.P. From Redrawing Political Map

The move would be a sharp escalation in the bitterly partisan clash over a congressional redistricting requested by President Trump.

Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives said they’re leaving the state on Sunday, in what would amount to a last-ditch attempt to stop Republicans from adopting an aggressively redrawn congressional map. Their absence would prevent the House from reaching the quorum needed to hold a vote this week.

The move to break quorum was a sharp escalation in the bitter partisan clash over a mid-decade redistricting in Texas that was requested by President Trump. Republicans in the State Legislature were rapidly moving forward, with the map — drawn to flip five Democratic congressional districts to favor Republicans — being passed out of two committees over the weekend.

A floor debate on the map, and a potential vote of the full House, was scheduled for Monday.

The ultimate outcome is far from certain: A walkout by the Democrats’ could delay action in the Legislature for several weeks or more, but comparable past attempts to block Republican legislation and redistricting in Texas have eventually failed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/us/texas-democrats-walkout-redistricting-map-gop.html

[dem4decades]

1. How long before they're arrested and jailed?

[Liberal In Texas]

2. They're going to Chicago, Ill. Hosted by Gov. Pritzker

Going to be kind of hard for Paxton to go and bring them back involuntarily. I don't think they would like to go through Chicago cops.

[Liberal In Texas]

3. My colleagues and I just left the state of Texas.

Texas House Democrats are leaving our beloved state to deny the quorum Texas Republicans need to pass Donald Trump’s redistricting power grab.
Trump is scared he’s going to lose his majority in Congress next year. He’s wrecking the economy, starting wars, protecting pedophiles, and kicking people off their healthcare to cut taxes for his billionaire friends.

So to shield himself from the voters, he told Texas Republicans to redraw our political maps and manufacture 5 new GOP seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.

But to pass these new maps, a certain number of legislators need to be on the floor to conduct business — a quorum.

My Democratic colleagues and I are not giving them one.

Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton will try to arrest us. So we’re traveling to Illinois where the governor has promised us safe harbor. We’ll be in the Land of Lincoln — which is appropriate because Abraham Lincoln broke quorum as a state senator in 1840 by jumping out of the window at the Illinois State Capitol.

We may not be at the Capitol, but we’re doing our jobs. We may not be in Texas, but we’re fighting for our constituents.
- From a fund-raising Email

[Arazi]

6. Good on JB Pritzker! Fight!

Last edited Sun Aug 3, 2025, 06:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Chicago in the summertime is mighty fine

[blogslug]

4. kick!

🤠

[Arazi]

5. If they can stall it long enough, other Dem states can also threaten to do this

If it can be proven that this move by TX is futile because enough Dem states are threatening to do it too, it might forestall this entire bullshit maneuver.

I’d rather this precedent was never enacted for any state. It’s such a bad thing for our small “d” democracy to gerrymander anywhere.

[Liberal In Texas]

7. If the repubs get away with it in Texas - Texas is the beta tester - Other red states

will no doubt pickup the thread and steal more congressional districts. This needs to be stopped now.

[Arazi]

8. Agreed. Anything Dems can do to stall or stop this until cooler heads prevail (if possible)